


A Meet-Cute in the Fade

by fascinationex



Series: transformers fics by fascinationex [34]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Circle of Magi, Developing Relationship, Fade Spirits, How Knock Out and Breakdown met, Mage Knock Out, Other, Spirit Breakdown, TF characters & DA setting, some mild violence, the prelude to mage/spirit relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex
Summary: When Knock Out first met Breakdown, he wasn't Breakdown. Knock Out was a Circle mage, and Circle mages did not consort with things called 'Breakdown', thank you very much, because there were a lot of large mean templars standing around just waiting to cut their heads off if they did.You can't get much more benign than a weak little Friendship spirit, though, right?[Knock Out meets Breakdown in the Fade.]
Relationships: Breakdown & Knock Out (Transformers)
Series: transformers fics by fascinationex [34]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1311599
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	A Meet-Cute in the Fade

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with a Dragon Age setting fusion for a bunch of TF characters, and then I decided I was interested in how they all got to where I imagined them. This is how Breakdown and Knock Out met. 
> 
> I started writing the DA setting fusion with the fic [In Which Starscream Summons A Demon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22968835), which explains how Starscream came to be a lone, haughty, Dalish blood mage swanning around Kirkwall. This fic doesn't reference that one, but they're in the same universe.

When Knock Out realised that, despite his own strong connection to the Fade, there were very few spirits who would work with him, he’d—well, he’d been pretty put out, actually. 

Faith In The Maker scorned him. 

Compassion—he never got to learn what kind of Compassion—flinched when he came to its demesne, and turned away when he called out to it. 

And what he’d _thought_ was a spirit of Wisdom had turned out to be a Pride demon in disguise. 

(“We would work so well together,” it had said to him when he’d realised, looking down upon him from its towering height. It had not bothered with any further disguise, and instead its crackling body and twisted horns loomed up into the green clouds of the raw Fade. 

Knock Out didn’t doubt it. They would have worked well together. He had been tempted, too. But demons were usually rubbish for healing, and they very often wanted to see the world across the Veil, erm, _first-hand_. So to speak. Knock Out wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.)

Knock Out didn’t lack for bravery, situationally, but he’d also never shied away from scapegoating someone else to keep himself safe. Valour, Honour In Death and Loyalty To A Cause all refused him, which he guessed was to be expected. 

He knew better than to allow himself to feel too frustrated in the Fade, but it happened anyway. Tiny Frustrations—barely more than wisps, really—began to seek him out, congregating around his feet. They were small and spiky, and would leave welts if he let them. Knock Out toed aside The Rising Cost of Grain even as he tried to master his own temper. 

All wasn’t lost. Surely if he looked long enough, he’d find a spirit of _some_ virtue who felt he embodied them enough to pose him some trials and work with him. Perhaps a spirit of Beauty? There was no way a spirit of Beauty would deny him… 

“ _I’ll_ say,” said a voice, low and honeyed, and he knew without even glancing that it was Desire, not Beauty. 

“If I turned down Pride, I’m definitely not interested in you,” he pointed out.

“You say that, but Pride is a cold and lonely thing. I can give you things that Pride can’t even fantasise about.” 

He took a deep breath and turned to face it. It looked like a woman, petite and completely bare, presumably on purpose. 

“No.” His staff materialised in his hand. Lightning flickered along it like a warning. 

Desire touched her fingers to her chest—her heaving bosom, as it appeared—and recoiled as though she was shocked and hurt. “Well! I can see when I’m not wanted,” she murmured. “But I can tell you this for free, mage: you’re more likely to find _Conceit_ than Beauty.”

And then she laughed at him, and it took all Knock Out’s considerable self control not to clobber her. 

Not least because she was right. He’d _met_ Conceits and Vanities before, in multiples. He’d never even encountered a spirit of Beauty. 

Desire was long gone before he could make the mistake of picking a fight with her, but the Frustrations were creeping up on him again, just waiting for the opportunity to overwhelm him with sheer numbers. 

He eyed what looked to be Horse Throwing A Shoe with disgust. “Ugh,” he muttered, and then he stopped voicing the feeling lest he accidentally summon Disgust. 

This was absurd, he decided. He was wonderful. Maybe none of these wishy-washy, touchy-feely spirits would work with him, but surely there were spirits of Perseverance or Competence who would have him. Surely—

“Um, are you… all right?”

Knock Out blinked. He hadn’t noticed its approach, and now that it was in front of him, he wasn’t sure exactly what it was, either. It was… blue. For a moment, he thought it was only an oddly colourful wisp. 

Better not to give such a thing an opening anyway. “Fine, thank you,” he said shortly. “Doing just fine!”

With a little effort, it managed to produce a form of its own: a huge, pale-skinned Avvar, musclebound and heavily-painted. If Knock Out looked closely, he could still see hints of the spirit’s blue form leaking through in the tint of the markings on his skin. 

“You’ve been talking to everyone, even, er, Desire and Pride and stuff. I just—” It stopped, uncertain. 

Despite the war paint, the form wasn’t well-armed or armoured. It had only a quarter staff. In the Fade, where every symbol had a meaning, it was interesting that the spirit chose a civilian weapon. A quarterstaff was a fine weapon of self defence, given its utility, reach and economy. But it was rubbish for killing. 

“What… are you?” Knock Out wondered, despite himself. Maybe he could have waited on a spirit of Futile Curiosity to help him.

Was it possible for a spirit to appear shy, when shyness wasn’t its attribute? The big barbarian shape shrunk in on itself, just a little—which in the Fade meant it _literally_ lost mass. Fascinating. 

“I, uh, I’m a Friendship,” he said.

Knock Out laughed. “Of all the spirits I didn’t attract, I didn’t attract _Friendship_ the most,” he scoffed. “And no offence, but you’re too weak to be Friendship.”

The mountainous Avvar shifted on his Fade-constructed feet. “I didn’t say I was Friendship—I said I’m _a_ Friendship. I’m Concern for Strangers.” Uncomfortably, he added, “I thought I’d be—something else. But I’m not.” 

His big hands twisted nervously around his quarterstaff.

The moment he’d said his name, Knock Out had realised he wasn’t lying. Sometimes you couldn’t tell, but sometimes the Fade was like this, and words rang honest like a bell somewhere between your small body and the Black City floating in the distance. 

“You’re _young_ ,” Knock Out realised. That was why he still looked wispy, and that was why the form he’d taken was tinted and stiff. He was young. And probably doomed, with an aspect like that. 

Concern for Strangers tilted his head. “I don’t know what that means?” There was a pause. “Hm. Age,” he said then. “That’s a… weird idea.”

“I suppose to you it must be. Well, maybe you can still be that other thing, if you try,” Knock Out said brightly, as kindly as he knew how. 

There wasn’t a lot of concern for strangers in the world to sustain this thing. But he was so small and new—he probably hadn’t known that. 

“…Maybe,” said Concern, voice small and dubious. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Of course, thought Knock Out, a little sourly. A spirit like this one could hardly help asking. He gave it a perfunctory but perfectly polite smile. “I’m looking for a strong virtue who will allow me to summon it through the Veil at times to lend me power for healing.”

Concern looked… well. Concerned. Brows knitted, mouth flat, broad shoulders tight. “A strong virtue,” he repeated. 

“That’s right,” said Knock Out pleasantly, meaning, _so, **not one like you.**_ This was the Fade, so the poor doomed spirit probably heard what he didn’t say aloud anyway. 

Knock Out really did feel for him. A little. 

Concern for Strangers peered at him with that concerned face for a few seconds longer, and then nodded. He broke into a smile. “I know a strong virtue for you!” 

He took Knock Out’s hand before Knock Out could even flinch away from the touch of an unfamiliar spirit. The raw Fade blurred around them and his yelp was lost to the speed of them both racing away through the eerie green environment. 

He did not even get the chance to admonish this young Concern, because he was suddenly in the middle of a spirit’s demesne, no longer the raw Fade. 

He hadn’t lied. Knock Out was flooded and overwhelmed by… he wasn’t even sure what it was, just that it was huge and had left every last one of his senses reeling. Voices echoed down through the centuries across the Fade, resonating here, crying out: _you will not take him, foul creature!_ And, ominously, _in death, sacrifice._

The spirit who formed from the noises rushing all around them was probably not a demon. 

But it was a _hard_ spirit. It was featureless, genderless, and glowing with the spark of something oddly familiar, which Knock Out regarded uneasily. It was unarmed and unarmoured, in the strictest sense, but it had large, sharp claws. It did not smile. 

Some sort of Fortitude, Knock Out supposed. That would be another waste of time, probably. Fortitude—and all of these virtues associated with acting for the common good in the face of opposition, really—was not a particular virtue of his. 

Still. “I’m seeking—”

“I know what you seek,” interrupted the spirit. Even its voice burned, hard and unyielding. There was no escaping that voice. Knock Out felt it in his bones and his fingers twitched. His staff flickered to life in his hand, and was immediately dismissed.

“I will not travel the path of the healer,” said the spirit, as though it hadn’t even noticed. “Take up the sword, and I will allow you to attempt to to prove yourself to me through the trials.”

This was by far the most positive response Knock Out had received from an actual spirit, and he was taken aback by it. He glanced at Concern once more. He looked—yes. Concerned. But cautiously hopeful, too.

“Excuse me,” said Knock Out, actually meaning it for perhaps the first time in his life, “but I am a healer. I won’t—” _careful now_ , he thought, for it was a very powerful spirit, “—that is, I do not prefer…”

“He wants to be a healer,” Concern said. 

“Yes. That.”

“A noble pursuit,” the probably-Fortitude said. “But it not mine. We have nothing more to discuss.”

Knock Out didn’t know if you could really throw up in the Fade, but he came pretty close to finding out when the powerful spirit ejected him from its demesne. The raw Fade wasn’t especially welcoming, either. He retched and trembled, leaning heavily upon his staff. 

A little Sickness drifted close, spreading its wispy grey arms like it wanted a hug. 

Concern For Strangers batted it away with his quarterstaff. 

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I thought you’d be perfect for each other, I— _stop_ staring at us,” he said sharply to the Sickness, who darted away from a lash of hostile energy.

“Quite all right,” said Knock Out, straightening up slowly. “I’m getting in practice at being rejected,” he added, sounding strained even to himself, “This may surprise you, but it doesn’t happen to someone like—well, _me_ —very often. Got any other friends, perhaps?”

Whatever else had happened, Concern For Strangers had found the first even slightly interested spirit—Knock Out would be foolish not to use him and try again. 

Concern chewed his bottom lip, which then flushed paler instead of darker when he let it go. He hadn’t quite gotten the hang of embodiment, Knock Out thought, amused. He had never spent much time with a young, still-learning spirit before. It was sort of cute, in the way of kittens chasing insects, before they learned how to crunch a terrified mouse through the throat.

“I know a few,” Concern For Strangers said, finally. 

He showed Knock Out to Hope, who pretended they were in entirely the wrong demesne, and then to Pity, who only shook its head and _tsk_ ed sadly at them. 

“I’m so sorry,” it said, in an aching, throbbing voice. “Perhaps you could try Temperance?”

“I’ll take it… under advisement,” said Knock Out weakly, by which he meant that if Temperance spirits existed, he’d never even heard of one before and there was probably a good reason for that. 

Concern didn’t look as though he thought it was a good idea, either, and he didn’t encourage Knock Out to try it. 

“Justice?” he suggested instead, brow furrowed. 

“Might as well,” Knock Out agreed. 

Justice was an unmitigated disaster, best not spoken of. 

They couldn’t even find Service or Humility. Where Knock Out was, apparently they… weren’t. 

“I don’t know any others,” Concern For Strangers said apologetically. He looked… concerned. Which figured, Knock Out supposed.

“The night’s almost over, anyway,” Knock Out murmured. He sat down on a nearby rock floating among the murky green environment and sighed. “I thought this would be easier,” he admitted. 

He wriggled his toes. How odd, that his feet could hurt from walking all night in the Fade. He waved a hand to get rid of a blister and it disappeared immediately. Magic was effortless here, and Knock Out was a good healer.

“I thought so, too,” Concern admitted. “You’re so nice… it seemed like it would be easy to find a spirit who’d work with you...”

_But not one of them thought I’d be any good at helping them in their purpose,_ Knock Out finished for him internally. He did not have much interest in morality, really, but being unable to find a single virtue who believed in him was—a little bit dire, really.

“Who was that first one? Fortitude, wasn’t it? Perhaps I can seek out more Fortitude spirits and see if one will...”

But Concern For Strangers was shaking his head. “That wasn’t a Fortitude—I don’t think, er, I don’t think Fortitude would be… good, for you,” he said nervously. 

Knock Out snorted. No, probably not. “What then? Determination?” 

“That was Love.”

Knock Out froze. He turned slowly to look at Concern For Strangers. “What?”

“Love In Adversity?” 

That savage, hard thing with the claws and the burning voice had been Love? A wild, strange, complex form of Love, which was of course what had made it so powerful.

He took a deep breath. Was he going to seek out _Love_? He wouldn’t even know where to begin to look. The only thing Knock Out loved was himself. 

“You’re waking up,” Concern For Strangers said, either oblivious or politely pretending. Given how young and new he was, Knock Out assumed the former. 

“Right,” said Knock Out. He was, too. He could feel it. “Well—thank you for your help, Concern for Strangers.”

He could thank the poor thing, at least. He’d certainly tried hard enough on Knock Out’s behalf. Concern For Strangers glowed cheerfully at him for a moment, and then Knock Out woke up. 

* * *

The Circle tower was much drearier than the Fade, for all that it wasn’t flooded with weird shades of green. Waking up didn’t feel great, but at least he was alone. Harrowed mages got their own rooms, rather than the shared dorms that housed the apprentices. The templars protested it every so often, when they felt bored or overzealous or just didn’t have anything better to whinge about. They said that mages shouldn’t sleep alone because that was when they most needed watching, and should sleep in giant dorms all together so templars could be easily posted to watch them.

There was nothing Knock Out found less restful, personally, than the idea of a templar hovering over him while he was asleep and vulnerable. The First Enchanter wouldn’t allow it, though. So far. But it wouldn’t always be in his hands. The Knight-Commander had more power.

But for now, Knock Out woke in a dimly lit room. All the light came from a slit of a window high up in the opposite wall, an architectural feature that allowed a tower like this one to withstand siege but which didn’t allow much light in. The bed was narrow but not actively uncomfortable, and there was enough space for three whole steps between the bed and the basin. There were no books (books belonged in the library, lest they somehow end up full of demons overnight. Knock Out had a desk in there that he had been known to defend tooth and claw as necessary), and he had no personal contacts, so there were no letters or notes.

What Knock Out did have was a comb, hand-carved from bone, and a tiny box of cosmetics. He had arrived at the Circle with the blackened resins on his face, with woven leather jewellery in his hair and on his arms, and with carved bones in his ears. Any other Chasind children taken from their clans had given up on it eventually, but Knock Out had never wanted to. 

If you asked the Knight-Captain, this was because he couldn’t handle not being the centre of attention for more than 0.3 seconds. 

Knock Out just assumed it made the big strapping bastards uncomfortable to remember that he was better looking, smarter _and_ more charming than any of them—and still a ‘wild barbarian’.

That morning, while he was braiding soft leather and animal teeth back into his hair and swiping dark, ground stibnite and bright powdered cochineal scales across his face, his mind was still very much fixed on the Fade. 

Concern for Strangers was one thing. Being concerned for a random stranger wandering the Fade was obviously within that poor deluded little Friendship’s wheelhouse. But he found it hard to believe that any virtue so noble as Love had paid any attention to him at all. Knock Out had never had anyone to love but himself—he barely remembered his parents, and he’d spoken only a wilder dialect when he’d arrived. He hadn’t made any friends. 

He’d only focused upon the school of Creationism at all because the senior enchanter who taught it to apprentices had told him it was ‘probably too complex’ for a person like _him_ to understand.

Knock Out, of course, not only understood it—he was good at it, so good that he could go no further without enticing a virtue to work with him and beginning the path of specialising as a spirit healer. The senior enchanter could shove that up his lily-white ass. 

These were not typically the motives he associated with _Love_ , and that unsettled him more than all the rejections he’d experienced together. It seemed, well, not _good_ , but at least _expected_ that spirits of Faith and Hope had wanted nothing to do with him, but Love—

And then, too, he couldn’t stop his thoughts circling on that young Friendship, Concern for Strangers. A spirit’s role was portraying some aspect they found to enact. They tended to be made stronger by the complexity of their concept, but for a spirit to be successful in the first place, the concept had to exist in the waking world, too. 

Some spirits did better than others, in Knock Out’s experience. 

Plenty of Faith around, in one form or another, however you wanted to define it.

Not so much concern for strangers.

The spirit was doomed. And doomed spirits didn’t _die_ , they became _demons_. What kind of demon would a sweet spirit like Concern for Strangers even become?

Knock Out’s fingers stilled for a moment on his plait, and he stared blindly into the beautiful, haughty face in the looking glass. 

It wasn’t long before he shook the feeling off. That was just the spirit’s own unfortunate choice. It wasn’t Knock Out’s problem. 

Knock Out’s problem was that no virtue wanted to work with him. 

He tied off the end of his plait, put down the comb, and carefully rearranged a few stray strands of hair.

_Not_ his problem. 

* * *

It was that very afternoon that he watched the First Enchanter lead a pale-faced kid with a bandaged arm in and sit him at a table corner all alone.

The mess hall was a large attachment to the tower, which could fit all the mages and templars as necessary. It was all bare stone, with a tall arched ceiling, long wooden benches and heavy stone tables. The narrow windows were here, too, meaning that the place was shady and dim even in the daylight. They lit it with torches in the evening, even though any of the mages could have summoned a wisp to light the place. No need to use vile magic when the hall could reek of burning animal fat instead, obviously.

None of the apprentices were out of classes yet, and it was plain that the First Enchanter was going to leave him there all alone while the rest of the mages averted their eyes and the templars watched, stony and impassive. 

_Thank the sky god that’s not my problem_ , Knock Out thought. He wasn’t such a coward that he’d turn away and watch nervously from his peripheral vision, and he wasn’t especially ashamed of his reputation for callousness. He leaned on his table, chin propped in his hand, and watched the pair.

He didn’t like children. Usually children didn’t like Knock Out, either. This one was red across the cheeks and deathly white everywhere else, eyes huge and glossy with tears. Big eyes, too, and sharp little elf ears. 

The First Enchanter gave the kid a last little pat, and then rushed away moments before the mid-afternoon bell rang out.

Knock Out watched with detached interest as the little boy started to cry in huge, gasping sobs. He’d figure out how to do that quietly when he got older, or else he’d catch hell from the other apprentices.

Unbidden, as it had been all day, the thought of Concern for Strangers popped into Knock Out’s head. 

_This is why he’ll be a demon one day_ , came a nagging little reminder. 

Knock Out shifted in his seat. 

_So what_ , he thought. Nobody had ever given a damn about Knock Out, and he was fine. The boy would—

But of course, the _spirit_ wouldn’t. 

And the sky god knew it might have been easier if someone _had_ at least pretended to give a damn about Knock Out, as something other than a potential font of demon activity. 

Knock Out sighed deeply and kicked back his pew with the scrape of heavy wood on stone, which was even louder than the sobbing. 

Several mages who were ostensibly not watching followed his progress across the mess hall, with varying levels of incredulity. Knock Out felt, and aggressively ignored, their scrutiny. He did not ask to seat himself, and instead he simply dropped into the seat next to the crying boy.

“Hi there,” he said, in what he hoped was a friendly tone. Knock Out knew he could be perfectly charming, it was just several years since he’d last exercised that particular gods-given talent. The kid managed to unsquint his leaking eyes for long enough to give Knock Out a very suspicious look. This indicated good instincts on his behalf, if you asked Knock Out. 

“Knock Out.” He offered his hand. 

It took a few long moments, but once he realised that Knock Out was gong to hold his hand out expectantly until sunset or until he got a response, he did take it. 

“That’s a weird name,” mumbled the elf boy.

Knock Out decided to magnanimously ignore this. “You came from the phylactery chamber, right?” he prompted, nodding at the kid’s bandage. 

He twitched and drew his arm in closer to his chest. “They put my blood in a bottle.”

“Yeah, they’ll do that. Here—” Knock Out flipped his own arm over and showed the child the tiny faded scar on his wrist. 

Really, they weren’t supposed to scar. They didn’t need that much for a phylactery, and the cut wasn’t meant to go that deep. But Knock Out had seen the knife and he’d already known not to give his blood to strangers for magic. He’d been what the templars called ‘non-compliant’. 

He was an old hand at avoiding thoughts of that, and didn’t even blink when the boy said, “The First Enchanter said it’s so they don’t lose me.”

“I’m sure it’s something like that,” Knock Out lied. “You want to see something cool? Here, show me the cut,” he waved at the bandage and the kid nodded hesitantly and slowly—so slowly, in fact, that Knock Out was extremely aware that he could have been doing six or seven other things with this time, while he sat here waiting with artificial patience for this kid to take a _geological age_ to unwrap his bandage. 

He knew just looking at it, when it was revealed, that the cut had been careful and controlled. So at least the First Enchanter was good for something, he guessed. 

Showily, Knock Out brought his hand to his mouth and blew on it, summoning a tiny flicker of magic at the same time. His fingers seemed to light up in response to his breath, glowing brighter as he blew. 

He pressed two fingers over the little cut on the boy’s pale skin. 

When he pulled them away, it was unblemished and whole. There wasn’t even a hint of a scar—Knock Out really did excel at the cosmetics, if he did say so himself. _And he did_. 

The boy looked from his healed arm back up to Knock Out’s face with surprise and a little awe.

“It’s gone!” 

“Of course.” Knock Out buffed his nails on the collar of his robe, idle and nonchalant, like he wasn’t lapping up the surprise and admiration. “I’m just _that_ good.” He could almost physically feel the nearest templar rolling his eyes. 

Then, abruptly, he realised the kid wasn’t crying anymore and he had no idea what to do or say next. He got right back up to his feet. 

“Alright then! I’ve got things to do in the library, bye,” he said, before zooming out through the door, under the watchful eyes of the nearest templar.

* * *

That night he dreamed about his own phylactery—specifically, the night the templars took his blood. The senior enchanter with him had not been anywhere near as sympathetic or as kind as the First Enchanter must have been with the elf boy. Knock Out had been nine, and old enough to have begun learning among his own small clan—

It was a Fear. He knew it was a Fear, but in the ever-shifting mists of the Fade it looked exactly like the senior enchanter had that night. 

“Hold the little savage still,” it said, bland and uncaring, and a huge cold body pressed into him from behind. A steely, armoured forearm hooked around his throat. It was so true to the memory that Knock Out could smell the templar behind him, reeking of iron and sour, sweat-soaked linen padding. 

“Non-compliance is not acceptable,” said the enchanter, watching. 

“Bad little apprentices become good little tranquil,” whispered the templar to him. 

In real life, this had been about when Knock Out had truly begun to panic, thrashing, heedless of whether or not that heavy steel-encased body choked him. In real life, he’d howled and kicked and screamed. For the gods’ sakes, he’d put dents in the templar’s gauntlet and chipped his own last baby teeth. 

But in the Fade, it was now that the demon cooed, “Do you know what that means?” and he felt himself begin to react, captive in its demesne. He gasped helplessly as they bruised him with their rough gauntlets. 

The knife bit into his arm. _It’s not real_ , Knock Out reminded himself, trying to think through the fog, even as he could taste his own tears, so vivid were they. 

The demon and its servants—wisps, probably—still had a hold on him, but it was a nightmare, and his body in the Fade was only as strong as his mind. _It’s not real_ , as the knife cut deeper and deeper, until the awful jarring sensation when it hit the bone. They kept sawing through even as he started to howl—

The Fear demon masquerading as a senior enchanter dropped like a rock when Concern’s quarterstaff smacked into its skull. 

Concern for Strangers loomed behind it in his musclebound Avvar form, looking oddly and incongruously fierce. 

There was a brief, mean little scuffle. Knock Out lurched to his feet, clutching at his arm. It wasn’t severed anymore. It wasn’t even bleeding. The very concept of being caught up in a Fear demon’s clutches was _humiliating_ , and it was with a sense of stung pride what Knock Out whirled on it and set it on fire. 

Concern for Strangers slapped down the wisps acting as its templars. “Are you—” he began. 

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Knock Out said loudly, right over him. He looked down at his staff and pretended to check his boots for nonexistent Fade dirt. “I don’t usually...” 

He looked up, and then forgot what he was saying. 

Concern for Strangers was smiling at him with such wide open sincerity that Knock Out shifted uncomfortably on his toes. 

“What, exactly, is putting _that_ look on your face?” he demanded. 

It wasn’t that Knock Out didn’t deserve to be looked upon like that—only that open adoration smacked of _expectation_ , and he wasn’t sure how well he liked it. 

“You did something, just to make me stronger,” he said, circling Knock Out casually, checking him over for damage. 

And now Knock Out was _really_ uncomfortable. It wasn’t often that he was driven to consider others’ feelings, but when you conditioned people to expect nothing, they got all excited about the least little something…

“Oh, that,” he said, forcefully dismissive. He turned his head to follow Concern For Strangers’ circling. “To be honest with you, I didn’t know if that would even work—I wasn’t very concerned about him.”

The Friendship spirit seemed all aglow—because he was aglow, Knock Out realised. He was all lit up with his adoration. 

“It would have worked anyway,” he said, heedless of Knock Out’s embarrassment, “but you _were_ concerned for a stranger.”

“What?” he squawked. He really wasn’t. If it hadn’t been for the spirit, he’d have happily sat and watched the elf kid bawl and counted it lucky that he had no responsibility for him. “I don’t think—”

“ _I’m_ the stranger,” laughed Concern for Strangers, leaning in towards him. Close up, he towered over Knock Out by almost a full head, which really had nothing on the sheer mass difference implied by the breadth of his shoulders. 

“Oh.” He supposed he had been, at that. Knock Out wasn’t used to considering spirits very much like people, although of course he knew that the more complex ones were at least as intelligent as the average human… 

(This was quite contrary to Chantry teachings, which did not consider demons very clever at all—the first, flawed children of the maker and so on. But the Chantry was internally inconsistent, anyway, claiming demons were both clever enough to trick people and too stupid to _be_ people. As usual, Knock Out quietly classed this under ‘whatever’, and kept to his own clan’s traditions, in as much as he ever remembered them.)

Despite his discomfort, there was something indisputably nice about making the spirit so happy with such a small effort. 

“Well. I’m glad it helped, then,” he said, just as dismissively as he could manage. 

“Still looking for a virtue?” Concern wondered.

“Why?” Knock Out’s eyes narrowed. “I thought we’d exhausted your contacts.”

“Uh...” there was a loooong pause. “We did do that. Yes.”

There was an even longer pause. A bit of rock danced by, floating through whatever the Fade chose to consider the air. 

Knock Out licked his teeth.

“I suppose you can come with me,” he said at last, rolling his eyes. A spirit to guide him through the Fade certainly wouldn’t hurt. And you didn’t get much more benign than a Friendship spirit. Even if he’d attracted it more or less by accident.

Concern brightened even further. It was, unfortunately, adorable.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's that. I'll explain how Breakdown goes from being a little Friendship spirit to being, well, Breakdown, in another story... eventually. xD
> 
> If you found you liked something, please feel free to let me know in a comment. 
> 
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